SPFF News & Resources

Bob Redding of The Redding Firm brought together a panel of peanut industry stakeholders to talk about the current state of trade and what can be done about it.

“It’s going to impact all of us if we don’t look at the fact that what we’re growing we’ve got to sell,” said Georgia Peanut Commission Executive Director Don Koehler, who serves on the USTR Agricultural Technical Advisory Committee for Trade. He shared the panel with Karl Zimmer of the American Peanut Shellers Association, and Joe Parker with the National Peanut Buying Points Association.

Corteva made a splash as a new company with old roots at the 2019 Southern Peanut Growers Conference in Panama City Beach, Florida. The recent merger of the agriculture divisions of Dow and DuPont brings a number of crop protection products to the table for peanut growers, including fungicides, insecticides and herbicides. Corteva sponsored some beach activities as a part of the conference this year.

“Part of our mission of Corteva has been ‘Feed the people of the world.’ We can’t do that without starting right here with peanuts, because peanuts touch so many different parts of lives,” says Tony Brunson, territory manager in crop protection. “But these aren’t just guys that grow peanuts. These are our partners. It is very important, not only as a mission of our company but as stewards of our company, stewards of the process, stewards of the products that are out there, stewards of the growers to be here and support them moving forward.”

Brunson said the beach atmosphere provided a relaxed atmosphere to interact with farmers and their families, as well as other companies at the conference.

Vantage Southeast sponsored the conference blog at the 2019 Southern Peanut Growers Conference, taking advantage of the opportunity to contribute to the show and check in on how the season is going for their farmer customers. Growers are doing more and more with precision agriculture and data, according to Travis Kelly, vice president of field solutions.

“We’re taking a strong focus at the beginning of the season, just making sure that we’re getting the seed in the ground… right place, right time,” says Kelly. “A lot of the data that comes out of it, people are able to make a lot more decisions as far as moisture and everything that they’re needing to see at time of planting now.”

Kelly says farmers have to be increasingly particular about logging spray applications and planting dates, which he believes is good for farm history and also for making decisions about the future.

The harsh reality of the current market situation for peanuts was brought home during the Saturday Trade and Market Update panel at the 2019 SPGC.

With average peanut prices at their lowest in modern history, uncertainty in the export market, and disaster aid slow to come, it’s not a super situation. “Domestic demand is flat at best…export demand is uncertain primarily because of China and the tariffs…the best way to restore supply demand balance in the peanut market is to create additional demand for U.S. peanuts,” said peanut broker George Lovatt of Lovatt & Rushing.

He says the industry needs to take a hard look at what can be done to increase demand. “We’ve got to start thinking differently about how we do our exports,” said Fletcher, who believes trade will impact the peanut program and will impact the next farm bill.

Participants in this year’s Southern Peanut Growers Conference in Panama City Beach, Florida, learned more about two specific products from top level sponsor Syngenta.

“Syngenta does a very nice job of continuing to invest R&D dollars into research, bringing new products to the market,” says Lyle Stewart, district sales manager for Syngenta. “Over the past three years we’ve brought two specific products that continue to add a lot of value to growers in the southeast, and that being Miravis for leaf spot and then Elatus for white mold and for leaf spot. Those products continue to offer, as we hear from our customers, tremendous value to their operations.”

Stewart says what sets these apart from the rest of the market is the fact that when the two products are used in conjunction for leaf spot and white mold primarily, they can offer farmers a 28-day fungicide spray schedule. In the past, the common way would be a 14-day schedule or even a 10-day interval between sprays if conditions were wet. The residual offered by Miravis and Elatus allows for 28-day control.

Stewart adds that overall peanut and cotton crops in the southeast region are looking quite good with the exception of some dry areas. He notes many growers in that area are still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Michael.

In its second year as a sponsor at the Southern Peanut Growers Conference, FMC shared information about Prevathon and Lucento with growers in attendance. FMC Regional Tech Service Manager Bruce Stripling says the company is excited about getting the first applications of Lucento out this season and visiting with growers about how it will fit into their programs.

“The growers are the reason why we’re here,” says Stripling. “They’re the end user of our products. They’re also the ones that are going to be asked to feed this expanded population that’s coming. Our growers are some of the best in the world. We’re excited to be here.”

He says Lucento is an excellent early and late season leaf spot product, which also fights rust and soil-borne diseases like southern stem rot. He encourages growers to mix in other modes of action to protect the chemistry in order to keep the product around for a long time.

BASF shared more information about a new fungicide product with participants at the Southern Peanut Growers Conference.

Technical Service Representative Abraham Fulmer says Revysol is a revolutionary product in a lot of ways.

“This product has the ability to conform and flex and be more plastic, so to speak, to bind to that target site on a molecular basis,” says Fulmer. “So, that’s why it’s able to bind very tightly and by doing so it really increases the level of efficacy. But there’s also a really neat part of it is that when it goes into the leaf, very quickly – within an hour – it creates these reservoirs and these reservoirs will allow it to slowly distribute but consistently up through the leaf providing a very long, residual control.”

The product has received federal registration and there will be three different offerings in row crops and specialty crops, including Provysol for peanuts. Growers saw limited availability in 2019, but BASF plans a larger launch for the 2020 growing season.

New research is critical for peanut farmers to keep improving on their already super crop to stay competitive.

University of Georgia plant pathologist Dr. Soraya Bertioli is doing research focused on using wild relatives of peanut to improve and understand pest and disease resistance. She talked about her research during a session at the 2019 SPGC.

The company does things a bit differently, says FBN Account Executive Jared Moore.

“The model of how we do business is we want to cut the middle men out that are stacking on the amount of money they are paying for products and take farm chemicals direct from generic manufacturers to the farm so that we can drive their input prices down and return a better investment on those acres to them,” says Moore. “It’s just a different model of business. Every farmer gets the same price whether you’re one acre or 1,000 acres.”

FBN also works with farmers on cotton and rice acres, and they are looking to expand into specialty markets like chickpeas, for example. Moore says they rely on member input and also offer group rate health insurance based as farmers have shared that need. FBN currently serves more than 8,000 farmer members and 27 million acres.

“Farmers take the most overhead and have the least return,” says Moore. “It’s time for that to change.”